THE WILD BLUE YONDER

The Wild Blue Yonder

  As I drove into the parking lot of the Wheeler Downtown Airport, a low flying A-10 Thunderbolt Warthog screamed over the building next to my car.

 20,000 people cheered as it disappeared into the clouds only to return within seconds to buzz the crowd again The Kansas City Aviation Expo was in full swing and I would soon be taking a wild seven minute ride on Fat Albert, the Blue Angels monstrous C-130 Hercules support plane.

  The scent of jet fuel filled the air as I walked to hanger number five where I joined several other members of the media waiting to have our press credentials checked. After this security measure was taken care of we were seated on a couple of golf carts so we could be shuttled out to the flight line where Fat Albert and its much smaller and sleeker cousins, the F/A-18 Hornets waited.

   As we approached the aircraft my mind started drifting back in time to my first ride on a C-130 over 36 years ago.

    Merle Haggard’s patriotic song “The Fighting Side of Me” was playing on my dad’s car radio which lifted my spirits a little as we drove through the main gate of Richards-Gebaur AFB on April 29, 1970. He dropped me off on the flight line where I watched his car until it disappeared over a hill. I turned around, took a deep breath and started walking towards a gigantic airplane hanger where I was told to report.

  I was a 20 year old, wide eyed kid who had never been on a plane or traveled farther than a hundred miles from home. Once inside the hanger I met up with several other recruits who were as nervous as I was. After what seemed like an eternity of filling out paper work we were finally taken to another hanger where we got to practice the hurry up and wait routine so popular with the military.

  Eventually we were led out on to the tarmac past several planes towards the biggest aircraft I had ever seen in my young life. I swallowed hard as the cold April wind whipped across the flight line and wished I could hear that Merle Haggard song again.

  I sat down on one of the wooden benches in the huge belly of the four propeller plane. Several men wearing headphones with the cords trailing behind them were scrambling around the planes giant confines securing various pieces of equipment as the enormous rear ramp doors began closing.

  With the whine of the engines slowly increasing, a Staff Sergeant yelled out that we were sitting in a C-130 Hercules, the most versatile transport plane in the history of the military. As the wheels left the ground and we became airborne, I had to strain to hear the Sergeants last instructions. “Keep your seat belts tight, use the brown paper bag if you get sick and raise your hand if you have a question. We will be landing at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Tx in four hours where you will begin your six weeks of basic training in the Untied States Air force.”

  Just like 36 years ago, a cold wind was blowing across the flight line as we climbed out of the golf carts. Other than a beautiful white, blue and yellow paint job, Fat Albert looked just like the C-130 I went to boot camp in. As we eased into the seats running down each side of the fuselage I noticed that they weren’t wooden now but nylon and were in a different configuration from my maiden voyage. The ceiling looked to be about ten feet high with wires and electronic devices occupying every available space. The steel floor had rollers in various locations for moving heavy crates and plenty of spots for lashing down cargo. There were only a few small windows that were much too high to look out. Carefully climbing several steps that were more like a ladder brought me to the highest point in the plane which is the cockpit. There was more room than I thought there would be and the number of gauges and instruments were mind boggling. It looked as complex as the space shuttle. I think I could learn how to speak Chinese faster than I could learn what all those gauges mean.

   Someone said the flight crew had arrived and we needed to get outside for a debriefing. A couple of dozen or so young men from all four branches of the military had gathered around two pilots when we stepped out of the plane. Like the media, they were all here for their first ride on Fat Albert. Most of the debriefing was directed to them, so I didn’t pay a lot of attention until I heard a pilot say that this would be a maximum performance demonstration of the C-130s capabilities. “This dynamic flight will subject you to positive and negative g-forces that could result in motion sickness” explained one of the pilots. Each one of you will receive a bag to use in case you get sick. If you vomit on the floor you will be the one cleaning it up. We will endure dives, climbs and turns at over 300 mph. I was suddenly as nervous as I was in 1970. That was a nice slow uneventful flight and this flight had all the makings an experience I wouldn’t soon forget.

  I pulled the seat belt as tight as humanly possible, zipped my camera into my coat pocket and silently cursed myself for not taking one of my wife’s air sickness pills before I left home. While the engines warmed up, a step ladder was secured in the center of the floor. A Marine that wasn’t much more than a kid scampered up the ladder to a small perch just below the ceiling. He took a seat on a steel platform approximately six inches by three feet and stuck his head up into a plastic bubble which allowed him to see outside the aircraft.  As another Marine hooked up safety belts to the young man I asked him why he had such a lofty seat and learned that traditionally, the youngest man on every flight always sits in this make shift crows nest.

  With plenty of shaking, vibrating and engine noise we slowly made our way down the runway. I thought it was strange that we weren’t gaining speed very fast like a commercial airliner does and wondered if we would even get off the ground before we ran out of runway.

  The wondering came to an abrupt end when it suddenly felt like we had been shot out of a cannon. The sudden acceleration was so powerful that it slammed me against the woman sitting to my left and held me there for close to a minute. I tried with all my might to get back into a sitting position but couldn’t until we leveled off.

  I’m glad they told us in the debriefing that the next maneuver after the climb would be a dive of over 300 mph because I would have sworn we were out of control and headed to a fiery crash that people would be talking about for years to come. We were descending at such a high rate of speed that a woman’s purse was floating as she held it by the straps. My stomach felt like it was some where in the rear section of the plane where my entire body would have been if not for the seat belt. I now know what weightlessness feels like.

  With the ground probably getting too close for comfort the pilot pulled the C-130 out of the dive and we all learned what word g-force means. You’ve all experienced it when the elevator you are riding on drops several floors and stops very quickly. Same thing on Fat Albert but much worse. It feels like a tremendous weight is sitting on you and you’re about two feet tall.

  Several more wicked turns and dives caused a couple of the Marines to lose their lunch as we came in for a landing. The pilots brought us to a full stop in front of the crowd so the ramp doors could be lowered and we could wave to everyone.

   There were mixed emotions as we departed the plane. A few of the service men thought the ride was fantastic and couldn’t wait until their next one. The flight crew had that look like most of us do when we finish our work day. The two Marines that tossed their cookies had beet red faces knowing full well that their buddies would never let them live it down. A few others had ash white faces from motion sickness and I’ll just bet than my own mug was a sick looking green.

  It took nearly an hour for my 55 year old body to get back to normal as I watched the rest of a fantastic air show from a nice safe place on the ground.

  It was an experience I will never forget and I’d like to give a special thanks to the Blue Angels for giving me this rare opportunity.

  

 

 

BACK IN THE SADDLE

Back in the Saddle

    Unlike a lot of people, when Jamie Knop asks you how you’re doing, she really means it.  She is one of those rare people that everyone instantly likes when they meet her for the first time. Her warm personality and caring attitude makes it seem like you’ve known her forever.

   Jamie and I have been friends for several years now. She does the receiving for a local warehouse so I get to talk to her a couple of times a week when I deliver there. Two years ago she told me she had been diagnosed with colon cancer. I was absolutely stunned. I never really gave cancer a second thought. I assumed it was a disease only very elderly people got. Jamie was only 43 years old. How in the world could a woman so young have this terrible disease? I soon learned that cancer could care less how old you are. The battle lines were drawn and Jamie was about to embark on a two year struggle to save her life.

    She had several things working in her favor. Her physical condition was excellent due to working in the warehouse eight hours a day. Riding and caring for the horses at her ranch in Miami County, Kansas several hours a day had built up her patience and endurance over the years. Plenty of friends, her faith, a loving family and a positive outlook would be huge allies in her upcoming battle.

  Colon surgery normally takes about an hour and a half. Jamies took four and a half hours. Over two feet of her large intestine was removed. It was eight long weeks before she could return to work. Chemo treatments would be next step. This was always performed on Mondays. Due to the affects of this treatment she would have to take off every Tuesday from work to rest. Wednesday morning would find her back at work where she would finish out the week.

   I know how chemo can completely exhaust a person so I asked Jamie how she managed to drag herself out of bed each day when she was so tired and sick. “My horses were the biggest reason I got out of bed each morning” was her answer. “They needed me and I needed them”

   The alarm clock signals the start of each day for Jamie at the ridiculous hour of 3 AM. Many times she lay in bed as the irritating little time machine insisted that she get up. A well placed hand would silence it. She would lay there in the darkness hurting from her head to her toes pondering why she should even get up. It would be so easy to just stay in bed and give up the fight. A few minutes would pass and like clock work the familiar noise of the feed buckets being clanged around by 16 horses just outside her front door would remind her why she would once again pull her aching body out of bed.  

   I spend a lot of time in the country fishing and hunting but know about as much about horses as I do brain surgery. Jamie invited me down to the ranch she runs for John Duckworth so I could see first hand what keeps her going.

  A few miles outside the sleepy little town of Fontana my granddaughter, Kelly Clopton spotted the white pipe fence we were watching for as we drove down the narrow two lane highway. “There’s the red barn were looking for grandpa” Kelly yelled out as I slowed the car down. With eyes as sharp as an eagle, this beautiful little girl doesn’t miss anything. As I shut the heavy steel gate behind me and got back in the car, I could see Jamie’s house across the valley about a quarter of a mile away. Acres and acres of pasture land surrounded it with heavy timber bordering the edges. A good size pond nudged up to the red barn with a big sign telling us that this was the JD Spur ranch. A Purina feed sign and a root cellar complete with an old fashion pump for water verified that we were indeed in the country.

   Jamie told us to come on in and make ourselves at home while she started a pot of coffee. As the aroma began to fill the kitchen I looked around the room. A perfect fit I thought as I noticed all the horse photos, saddles, bridles and knickknacks. This house and this woman were made for each other. A fantastic iron horse head that John made for her a few months ago sat on a wood table that had spurs branded into it. Jamie is an ex barrel racing champion and countless photos of her in the heat of competition filled the hallway. When I asked questions about various photos, you wouldn’t have thought she was even in the picture as she only talked about each particular horse and how great they were.

   By now, Kelly had become quite bored with all the talk and went outside to check out the barn next to the house. We went to look for her and found her high up in the loft playing with some cats in the hay. Jamie showed me the feed room and the tack room. Everything was very clean and orderly. We stepped outside into the windy cold morning air. Jamie took a deep breath and said, “Do you smell that wonderful clean county air”? “That’s why I live here and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world”.

   We couldn’t have been outside for more that a couple of minutes when the first horse spotted Jamie. Within another minute all the other horses came running up to her, each one trying its best to push the others out of the way so they could get their fair share of her love. You would have thought they were groupies surrounding a rock star. She knows each horses name and age and any physical problems they might have.  As she strokes each of them she looks them over from top to bottom for any potential health problems.

   The JD Spur is a retirement ranch for horses with the oldest being well over forty. Other than Jamie’s own five horses, the others are never rode. They live out their remaining years running free over 80 acres of beautiful pastures. They get fed at four in the morning and again in the evening.  Special little treats of apples, carrots and apple cookies are given out on a regular basis.

  A typical day is nearly 18 hours long for this hard working woman. Running a ranch plus holding down a full time job and dealing with cancer would bring most people to their knees but not Jamie Knop. I’ve never heard her complain one single time. She lives life to the fullest. Her doctors have recently told her that the cancer is now in remission. She has begun training her youngest horse so she can start competing for another championship in barrel racing. After spending a few hours with her, it’s easy to see why she has so many friends.

I’m proud to say that I’m one of them.

A FORGOTTEN RIVER

 A Forgotten River

      A large, water logged tree trunk who’s origin will never be known, found a temporary home on the banks of the Missouri river within view of downtown Kansas City. Worn smooth from years of exposure to Mother Nature’s elements, it will make a perfect place for the occasional visitor to sit and day dream before heavy spring rains raise the water and free the tree so it can continue its journey down stream.   

   The quiet, tranquil, almost intoxicating view, punctuated with an occasional stunning sunset, can have a soothing, hypnotic affect on a person. Without much of an effort, you can let your imagination take you back in time to the pre civil war days as you watch the swift moving Missouri flow by.  The area where the Missouri and Kansas rivers meet would be much different a hundred and forty plus years ago. The tall Kansas City skyline, inter city viaduct and the bridges crisscrossing the river wouldn’t be there. In their place would be a busy, vibrant water front bustlingly with activity. The deafening blast of a steam whistle would draw your attention downstream where columns of dark black smoke could be seen pouring from the twins stacks of a magnificent steam boat as its powerful engines struggled against the mighty Missouri. Well over a hundred passengers from all walks of life jockey for position on the decks to get a better look at the frontier town of 4,000 people as the boat dodges snags and eases in to the wharf. Stevedores hustle to set the gang plank in position and begin unloading personal belongings and general commodities for the local merchants. I wonder how many of the passengers question whether they made the right decision to leave their homes back east for a new start in the Wild West as they disembarked.

 Unfortunately, we can’t day dream for ever and have to return to reality. Sadly, the hustle and bustle of the water front has been reduced to the barren banks and occasional fishing or tow boat we see today.

   Former northeast resident and river boat pilot, Rick Lynn grew up in a two room shack on the banks of the big muddy about a mile east of the Choteau bridge in the 1950s and remembers a more vibrant river during his childhood.

“It wasn’t at all unusual to see 20 or 30 pleasure boats on the river back then.” Rick said. “People camped on sand bars, fished and pulled skiers up and down the river. I can remember sitting on our dock at night looking across the river at the city dump. They deliberately set the trash on fire every few nights. The flames reflecting across the smooth as glass water created a beautiful view.”

  There were not any marinas on the river to take care of all the boats so Rick’s family started one next to their shack in 1957.

   In addition to the dock, the marina also had a boat ramp, carried fuel for their customers convenience and repaired boats in the fiberglass and machine shops.  At an age when most of us were more worried about playing with our childhood friends, Rick was helping the young business get off to a good start by doing every thing from pumping fuel to working in the repair shops. At age nine, he started driving the jeeps they used for launching close to 5,000 boats in to the river every year at 75 cent each. “It wasn’t that hard.” Rick said. “The jeep had a trailer hitch on the front bumper that made it relatively easy to steer the boat down the ramp.

    With so many people enjoying the river, Rick’s father, Richard, decided to buy his first excursion boat in 1965.  Powered by twin,six cylinder Norburg engines that came out of World War two surplus halftracks, the 69 ton Delores Philly took as many as 200 people at a time up and down the river by the Choteau bridge for twenty years.

   Business was so good that Richard added the 650 passenger Missouri River Queen in 1985.  Built in 1984, she was specificity designed for the rigors of the Missouri river.  It took two weeks to sail her from Paducah, Kentucky to Kansas City. Richard’s third and final boat, The Spirit of America, made it’s appearance in Kansas City in 1990.

   “She was more modern than the Queen, could hold 800 people and looked similar to the love boat.”  Rick said.  “We sold her to the gaming people in 1995. They turned her into a gambling boat for off shore use along the coast of Florida.” 

  The Missouri River Queen was sold in 1998 ending a 30 year run of excursion boats in Kansas City.

    Rick, who served in both the Navy and the Marines, started as a deckhand on the family boats and became a riverboat pilot in 1969.  He achieved the rank of riverboat captain when he earned his 100 ton master mariner license in 1993.

     In his travels, Rick Lynn has seen every thing from heroics to tragic deaths on the Missouri river.

   “It was like a scene out of a movie.” Rick said as he searched his memory. “We were approaching the Hannibal Bridge on a brilliantly blue day when I noticed a man that looked like James Dean on the highest part of the bridge. He was dressed in a white tee shirt and blue jeans. The police were running along the bridge trying to get close enough to talk him down. A helicopter circled over head and a small boat with several officers on board took a position under the bridge. The man calmly took out a cigarette, smoked it and jumped. He popped up like a cork and started swimming like he was in the Olympics. He was handcuffed and placed under arrest when he reached the shore.”

   It was four in the morning on a pitch black night in 1968 when Richard Lynn steered the Queen towards the Choteau bridge. A strong wind was creating white caps across the swirling waters as they went under the bridge. First mate, Nelson Perry was working on the second deck when he heard some thing hit the water hard, which was amazing since he is deaf in one ear and wears a hearing aid in the other one. He was in his late fifties at the time and only had one eye but some how managed to spot the woman who jumped from the bridge struggling in the water. He dove into the dark water from the second deck and reached her in time. The Queen had a full boat of passengers and no other deck hands on board so Richard had no choice but to return to port and contact the authorities. Nelson fought to keep the woman afloat for three hours as the current took them downstream. They were both rescued and Nelson received a presidential citation from President Nixon.

  In another act of heroism, Richard was awarded the Congressional Life Saving metal from Senator Dole for saving a woman who jumped off his boat. He dove in and fought the current to catch up to her. In the fight to try and reach the bank they both became tangled up in a dredge line. Eventually, the couple broke free and made it to the shore. The woman was alive when Richard handed her over to the paramedics but later died.

    It’s any ones guess why the occasional depressed and suicidal person chooses the Missouri river as a place to end their lives. Perhaps they should do just the opposite and embrace the river as a means of self therapy.  A few hours of sitting on the log in the serene place I wrote about might go a long way towards finding inner peace.

  The area where the Lewis and Clark expedition once camped has made such a lasting impression on Rick that he has decided to have his funeral services there when that inevitable day arrives.

   He has purchased an unusual but beautiful coffin that bears a remarkable resemblance to the Missouri River Queen. It will sit high atop a peninsula where the Missouri and Kansas rivers meet below it and the Kansas City skyline towers above it. Rick is donating his remains to science so he will only be there in spirit. Instead of his body the coffin will contain his captains uniform, a boat oar, a box of cigars and a bottle of Jack Daniels. There will be a band, a bag pipe player and Lewis and Clark re-enactors. The public is invited to attend the services. The price will be 20 dollars in advance and 100 dollars at the gate. It will cost you a quarter to peek inside the coffin. All proceeds will go towards the building of a discover center at the confluence of the rivers. The coffin will be on display there along with its contents.

      I think Rick put it best when he said the only news we see about the Missouri river is usually negative such as the discovery of a toxic waste site or a body being found.

   “The reality is, its beautiful.” Rick said. “It’s in better condition now than it ever has been. We have a wonderful resource right here in our back yard and choose to ignore it. Smaller cities and towns up and down the river have better riverfronts than we do.”

    I tried the river for the first time last year and couldn’t agree more. In two evenings, we caught a total of 183 pounds of catfish from our boat. You can safely eat one meal of catfish a week since they are a bottom feeder or practice the catch and release method like I do. I can’t think of a bigger thrill than fighting a fifty pound Bluecat in the swift current of the Missouri and you don’t have to spend a fortune in gas to get there.

  It looks like those hardy pioneers from the 1800s made the right decision after all when they got off the steamships

A FLY ON THE WALL

A Fly on the Wall.

   “How I wish I were a fly on the wall.” At some point in time, most of us have muttered those words when we desperately wanted to hear a conversation going on in the next room. Carolyn Freeman is certainly not a fly but as a teenager back in the 1930s she would often find herself in such an advantageous position when Senator Harry Truman visited her Aunt Minnie’s home in Rich Hill, Missouri.

   The 85 year old Independence, Mo woman grew up on an eighty acre farm a few miles from her Aunts place.

  “My sister Virginia and I got up at five o’clock every morning to do chores before we went to Ovid grade school which was two miles away if you took the road.” Carolyn said. “Not particularly wanting to walk that far, we usually cut the distance in half to the one room school house by taking a short cut across the corn field.”

    Those early morning tasks the girls had to do were not easy.

“I had to clean that dad blasted cream separator every single day!” Carolyn said as a slight frown began to wrinkle her forehead. “At the end of each day I scrubbed our clothes on a wash board and rinsed them with water we caught in a rain barrel. I had to press them with a heavy triangular shaped iron we heated up on the stove every morning before we left for school.”    

   No electricity or indoor plumbing made their day to day lives quite challenging but they got by like countless other rural families in that time period.

    “We had kerosene lamps for light and an outhouse for a bathroom.” Carolyn said. “The only running water we had was when my mom gave me a one gallon syrup bucket and told me to run down to the well and get some water. Our entire family worked long, hard hours every day from early spring until late summer to keep the farm going and provide us a living. We didn’t have much but neither did any one else in our farming community. We were happy and when you get right down to it, you can’t miss what you never had.”

    With the fall of the year coming to an end, all the crops harvested and old man winter beginning to make its annual assault on the farm, it was time for Carolyn’s father and their hired hand, Mick to start working in the small coal mine located on the property. A tractor was parked at the mine entrance with one wheel taken off so a belt could be attached to the hub. The belt ran along the tracks that led into the dark interior of the mine where the two men would shovel coal in to a couple of heavy steel cars five feet long and three feet wide. The tractors powerful engine would turn the belt and pull the cars to the surface.

  “Dad sold some of the coal to neighbors but a lot of the time he just gave it away to people that were down on their luck and figured they would pay him some day when they got the money.” Carolyn said. “Of course, most of it was used to warm our own house through out the cold, harsh winters. Our brother Bill, who was killed in World War Two, got to occasionally help in the mine. Virginia and I always took lunch to dad and Mick but were never allowed to go inside. Dad had become very over protective with me and my sister after Virginia got hit in the hip by a baseball at age five. She was able to walk normally immediately afterwards and didn’t seem to be in pain so our parents didn’t take her to the doctor. Just to get an x-ray would have meant driving a hundred miles to Kansas City. By the time Virginia was seven years old she began to have problems walking due to a hair line break in her hip that would require eleven operations over the rest of her life. Dad kept a close eye on us after that and made sure we didn’t get around the cattle or horses or do any thing that might cause us to be injured.”

    Every Sunday you could find the family enjoying a huge dinner at Clark and Minnie Ritchie’s house on the edge of town.

    “The old coal stove in the kitchen must have been very difficult to use but Aunt Minnie could cook virtually anything on it and make it taste great.” Carolyn said. “Her fried chicken was out of this world.”

    The meals were so good that Senator Harry Truman who would later become the 33^rd president of the Untied States ate there on many occasions when he spent the weekend at the Rich Hill Gun Club. Mr. Truman was in the army during World War One with Clark’s son Judd Ritchie so he stopped by with his buddy Jimmy Pendergast and another man to visit and enjoy some fantastic home cooking.

  It was on these visits that Carolyn would get a call from Aunt Minnie to come over and give her a hand.  She still remembers what the old place looked like. “Chickens would scattered out of my way as I ran across the back yard.” She said. “The house was very big. It had five bedrooms and a living room so enormous that two 8 by 10 and two 4 by 6 rugs couldn’t cover the entire floor. A big stone fireplace warmed the room so well that Mr. Truman once fell asleep on one of the two divans after a big lunch and nearly missed an important speech he was giving in town.

    I asked Carolyn if she had any lengthy conversations with Senator Truman. “My goodness no.” She laughed. “I was a young teenager and very shy. I just kept quiet as I took food from the kitchen into the dinning room where Mr. Truman, Jimmy Pendergast, Uncle Judd, Uncle Clark and another man I can’t remember the name of sat at the table.

  Leaning forward in my chair, I said. “I’ll bet you over heard some very interesting political discussions as you served the meals.”

   Carolyn’s answer surprised me. “No, not really.” She said. “Most of the time they just talked about your every day topics that men are interested in like the war, fishing, hunting and women.”

   Carolyn graduated from Rich Hill high school in 1941 and left for Kansas City that same night. She currently lives in Independence which of course is where President Truman lived.

  Her son Bill also had several personal encounters with Mr. Truman.

     “It was back in the early to mid 1960s.” Bill said. “I was about the same age my mom when she used to bring meals to Mr. Truman at Aunt Minnie’s house. I was a student at the old Palmer Junior high school in Independence. Mr. Truman was retired and loved to take early morning walks through the neighborhood with his body guard. Occasionally, their route would bring them by our school just as we were getting off the bus. Mr. Truman always stopped and talked to the kids for a few minutes. Unlike my mom, I did indeed talk to him every chance I got. He was always very polite and answered all my questions before he continued on to the barbershop where he loved to shoot the breeze with any one who might be there.”

   What a classic display of history repeating itself I thought as I left Carolyn’s home. ago.

  How I wish I would have been a fly on the wall of that charming house in Rich Hill seventy one years